Appendices
by callalili
Summary: A collection of one-shots and supplementary material in the "Bitter Leaves" universe that don't belong in the story proper, so I've posted them here.
1. A: Pro Utilitate Hominum

**Appendix A: Pro Utilitate Hominum**

* * *

He loved his children.

Why else would he care for them, when no one else would? Why else would he take them in, when the rest of the world had cast them aside? Why else would Sir Garnier de Naplouse, a Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier, sully his hands with blood and grime, and all for this thankless, endless, wearying task? If he did not love them—the poor, the crippled, the ill, the unsound of mind—if he did not take them in, and care for them, then who would? No one else loved them so much as he. No one else loved them at all.

And it broke his heart when they screamed and begged. They were his children, after all, and when their blood was on his hands and their broken cries fell on his ears it was _he_ who suffered the most. They would plead for mercy—but ah! he _gave_ them mercy, and if he did not stop cutting it was because he loved them so! One man's death might mean a thousand more might live. One man's insanity might mean a thousand more might break free of the prisons of their minds. They could not _see_, his children; they were blind, they screamed at him to stop as he dragged them out into the light—

He loved his children.

What sort of father would he be, if he left them to rot in the darkness?

--

He saw her, one day, as she came in with a basket of food and bandages for the wounded soldiers—not his children, though he took them in nonetheless, and the extra supplies brought in by well-meaning city women were appreciated. She stood in a shaft of light, a little hesitant, a green veil covering her hair; there was a softness in her eyes that made him straighten up from his patient.

"Sire?" his assistant asked.

"Change his bandages, and ensure that he does not move that leg," Garnier instructed. "He is not to leave the bed."

"Yes, sire."

He was barely listening. The girl was watching him as he approached, and she was beautiful, beautiful, even beneath the veil and shapeless gown she wore; the sunlight caught in her eyes, on her flawless skin, on the high cheekbones and delicate lips. "You," Garnier said, stopping before her. "You are not a Christian."

She blinked at him. For a moment he was afraid that she had not understood; Acre was home to many, after all, and most of them did not bother to learn the civilized tongues. He himself had had to learn Arabic to converse with his children.

But then she opened her mouth and replied in halting, unaccented Frankish: "I—no. I am not. But—I have brought food."

"Why?" he demanded.

She merely looked at him, unafraid. "_Bismi-Ilahi ar-rahmani ar-rahim_," she said. Her voice was very soft, like feathers, like doves. "In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, who advocates compassion for all."

So she had come out of compassion? Garnier nodded to the corner, where his aides had set up a table and some cabinets to handle donations. "Put that there," he told her.

But she hesitated. "I—I wish to help," she said. "If there is anything I can do—"

"Do you faint at the sight of blood?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"What's your name, girl?"

"Sarah," she said, oddly, with all the accents on the wrong syllables; but then, he supposed, she was not French.

"Sarah," he repeated. "Put the food over there and come with me. I have work for you."

--

She carried water for him as he made his rounds. Garnier showed her how to change a bandage and check a man for fever, and she went very pale at the man who had lost an arm, but she did not faint.

"You didn't come with the city women," Garnier observed. He bent to check that the wound was not festering.

"The city women?"

"They come on Wednesdays, and Sundays after church service," he told her. "They bring food and blankets for the wounded."

"Oh," Sarah said, looking down at her pail of water. "I—I didn't know."

"You must be new here."

"Yes. I came here after the infidels—" She broke off and stared at him, wide-eyed. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I did not mean to give offense—"

Ah! Such a kind soul she had, so gentle—and yet so misguided! "I am not offended," Garnier said, rising to his feet. "You cannot help what you have been taught, no matter how incorrect it might have been."

Sarah cast her eyes downward. "My father has an estate in the countryside," she said softly. "But after the Englishmen came through, he feared for my safety, and so he sent me to Acre to live with my cousin."

"The English." He shook his head and wiped his hands clean on his apron. "Some of them are no better than dogs. I am sorry you suffered at their hands."

"You are very kind, my lord." But her lips were trembling, as though she were afraid.

"Do not fear," Garnier told her kindly, taking the pail of water from her hands. "While the Knights Hospitalier are in Acre, no harm will come to such a gentle maiden as you."

But she was backing away from him. "I—I must go," she stammered out. "Before my cousin grows angry with me." She turned and fled.

Garnier watched her go.

An estate? So she was noble of blood, as well as noble of heart—

"Sire?" One of his guards broke him out of his thoughts. "Should we have her followed?"

"Let the lady have her privacy," Garnier said sharply.

--

She returned a few days later, and a few days after that, gracing his hospital with her presence, and he was drawn to her for her beauty and her compassion and her gentleness; she was an angel, a flower of chastity, a delicate desert bloom that trembled when he drew near—

And Garnier resolved that he would not let her soul be cast down when Judgment came. There was much work to be done yet—his children were undisciplined and unruly, trapped within themselves as so many men were; Saladin marched back and forth across the land and spouted his unenlightened philosophies; the assassins perched on their mountaintop fortresses and did evil in the misguided name of freedom. The Templars had not won. The world was not at peace. Garnier was a busy man, and there was so much he had to do.

But he would free Sarah. She was a dove, beating her wings helplessly against the iron cage of her mind, and Garnier would lift her out and take her above these petty men and their petty squabbles over morality and virtue. He would make her see.

--

He brought up the matter on her fourth visit. She followed him about like a shadow, listening wide-eyed as he showed her how to set a bone, and when he was through he rose and said, "I would like to show you something, Sarah, if you would allow me."

She followed him to his study, but lingered at the threshold and would not enter. "I should not be alone with you," she said, twisting her hands together. "It is not proper."

"I swear on my honor as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier," Garnier said, "that I will not lay a hand on you in violence or in lust. Please, come in."

Still she hesitated. "My cousin," she said. "He is—very powerful. If he knows I am here, with you—"

"I will send my guards away," Garnier promised, and did so.

Sarah stepped inside at last. "Thank you."

"Come." He drew a book down from the shelf. "I want you to have this—"

She took it gingerly, black leather and yellowed pages and a gilt cross emblazoned on the cover, and when she looked upon it he could almost see the light of revelation already in her eyes; "The holy book of the Christians," she murmured.

He would have taken her hand, but he had promised not to touch her. "I knew yours to be a noble soul from the very beginning," Garnier said. "I could not accept that you would be consigned to hellfire, simply because you did not know the true way. Take it."

But she was shaking her head. "No," she whispered. "I cannot take this. My cousin would take it, he would lock me up—"

Yes. That was true. "Stay here, then," he offered. "You can read it here, in my study, and when you go no one will be the wiser. No one enters here without my permission."

Her eyes were bright. "Oh, yes," she said. "Please. I—I think I would like that very much."

"I shall leave you to it, then," Garnier said, and bowed as he left the room.

--

She came more often after that, every two days or perhaps three, and sometimes after Garnier had finished his rounds they would sit together in his study and discuss theology. Sarah was a willing student; she listened, wide-eyed and silent, while he explained passages to her and introduced her to the vagaries of religious texts. Garnier had high hopes. She was so eager to learn—already he could imagine her as a convert to Christendom, and then—well, if one religion could be proven false, then why not all of them? And he would show her how false the precepts of men were, how wrong their ideals, and she would open her eyes and see the world for what it was and how it should be.

And Sarah would understand him then. He would show her what he had done for his children, and she would understand.

--

Of late he had been experimenting with opium. It was not a new drug, but it was potent, and so he was careful not to inhale too deeply as he placed lumps of it on the burning brazier scattered around the room. Between the braziers were rows of beds. A man groaned as Garnier passed; he stretched out his hand, his eyes fever-bright, and pleaded for water.

"You are not thirsty," Garnier said sternly. "Return to your slumber."

The man fell back onto his bed with a sigh. The air was filling with sweet smoke, and Garnier shut the door firmly behind him as he left the room.

"Give them three hours," he instructed his assistants. "Then bring in more opium, and coal for the fires. Do not forget to document the reactions."

"Yes, sire. Should we give them water, sire?"

Garnier considered. "No," he said at last. "No water."

"But sire, it has been two days—"

"Then I shall pray for their souls," Garnier said, and departed. They would be dead in the morning, but Robert de Sable would have his results—

Or rather, that would have been true if he hadn't tripped over a disheveled messenger in the hallway.

"Sire!" the man gasped. "Sire, I have news—"

"Clearly," Garnier snapped. "What is it?"

"Our caravans—one of them has been raided, and two couriers to Monsieur de Sable have been intercepted and their throats cut—"

"_Merde_," he said, and flung open his study door. "How?"

"Assassins—they must have been watching the roads—"

"What do they know?"

The man shrugged helplessly. "Whatever methods you have been sending to de Sable," he said. "They know that Talal is your supplier, at the very least. Thirteen slaves were taken in total. One died in the fight. The assassins left their crests written in blood on the ground."

Garnier cursed again. He reached for paper and ink; he would have letters to write. "I needed those slaves," he snapped. "How many guards did we lose?"

The messenger gulped. "All of them."

He brought down his quill with such force that it snapped. For a moment he stared at the ink splattered across the paper.

Then: "Get out."

"But sire—"

"Get _out_!" Garnier roared, and the messenger fled.

A caravan raided, and all the guards dead. Two couriers intercepted, and the messages most likely taken. It was a warning. The assassins would not have left their crests otherwise; it was a warning, and they were coming for him.

Merde, merde, _merde_. How had they found him?

--

Sarah came by later in the afternoon as he was finishing his rounds, but the visit did little to soothe his troubled heart. "My lord," she said, and she would not meet his eyes. "My—my cousin has grown suspicious. I am afraid that he might forbid me to come—"

Garnier rose quickly from his patient. "Are you in any danger?" he asked, frowning.

"I—no—I do not think he would hurt me—" But then Sarah looked up at him, and her eyes were bright with tears. Garnier stripped off his bloodstained apron at once.

"Come," he said, kindly, and led her to his study.

She broke down at once the moment they were alone, and Garnier took her into his arms while she clung to him, trembling, and spilled tears all down the front of his shirt. "I want to keep coming," she whispered. "I—I have learned so much here. You have taught me so much."

Ah, he could not lose her now, not when he was so close, not when he could see her freedom in the misty distance. "My doors are always open to you," he told her. "If you need anything—"

"Oh, no," Sarah said, drawing back in alarm. "No, I could not—you are—you are very kind, my lord, but my cousin—" She bit her lip and fell silent.

"I am Grand Master of the Knight Hospitalier," Garnier said, showing her his signet ring. "Have you forgotten? Who is your cousin, that you are so afraid of him?"

Sarah gazed up at him. "I have been selfish," she said, her voice very soft. "I only thought to—to come here. I wanted to learn what you had to teach me. And—I wanted to see you." She dropped her gaze. "I'm sorry. You must think me terribly bold."

It was such a contradiction that he nearly laughed; Sarah was such a flower of chastity and womanhood as he had never seen, and likely would never see again, and he could not let her go. Such a treasure—she was a pearl beyond price, an Ark of the Covenant all on her own, a glorious, shining Piece of Eden—

"I do not think you are bold," Garnier said. He lowered his voice, so as not to frighten her. "I care for you, Sarah. I can protect you."

But she was shaking her head. "I will speak to my cousin," she murmured, looking away. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to—to make this so dire. It is probably nothing. I was merely frightened. But I should go now."

She did not look as though she wanted to go; still, he would only frighten her more if he pushed now. "You may stay here until you compose yourself," Garnier told her. "I must finish my patrols, but if you would like anything—water, or an escort home—"

"No!" It burst out of her, and Sarah put her fingers to her lips. "No. Thank you for your kindness, but I'll only be a moment."

"Very well." But at the door, he could not resist turning to look at her again. "Will you come back?" he asked.

Her eyes were limpid in the sunlight, soft and dark and wide as she gazed at him. "For you, I will," she said.

--

The situation with the assassins grew more tangled by the day. Talal sent him a furious letter demanding to know how Masyaf had discovered their association; Abu'l Nuquod's courier was intercepted on the road between Damascus and Acre, but Garnier assumed that he wanted to know the same thing. In any case, all shipments of slaves and spices and opium were delayed. Garnier considered asking for aid.

But it would be futile. The English would refuse, and Sibrand—well, Sibrand would only gather his guards closer about himself. Coward. He called himself a Master of the Knights Teutonic, but he was no true knight—he was happy enough to take Garnier's coin, but would not bestir himself to raise a hand in aid, no matter that the entire vision of the Knights Templar was at stake.

And then, when Garnier thought the situation could grow no worse, Sarah came to him and spilled out her secrets, like blood beneath the surgeon's knife.

--

On the two month anniversary of their first meeting, Sarah sent him a note.

_My lord_, she had written. _I fear for my life, and yours as well. I would take your offer of sanctuary if it is still open; tonight, at midnight, I will come to the east gate of your hospital and await you there. Be wary. My cousin is a dangerous man._

_Please, I throw yourself upon your mercy_.

_Yours, Sarah_

The grubby messenger boy had run off as soon as he'd delivered the note. Garnier folded it into thirds and tucked it inside his shirt. He would order the guard doubled tonight.

And of course he would await her at the east gate; of that there was no question.

--

She was late, as he had expected; running away would not be an easy maneuver for her. Garnier paced restlessly before the gate while two of his knights stood guard. He should have had her followed. He could have provided an escort then, and faced down her cousin himself, and she would not be in danger now—out on the streets of Acre alone, at night, perhaps pursued—

Footsteps against the cobblestones. Garnier whirled around. Sarah came dashing out from the shadows of an alleyway and flung herself into his arms, weeping, so distraught that she could barely speak.

"Sarah," he said, alarmed. "What is it?"

"My cousin," she gasped, pulling away to gaze up at him. "I am afraid—I think—"

"You think what?"

"—I think he is an assassin," Sarah said, and one of his knights let out a startled oath.

"Language, Reynard," Garnier snapped sharply. And, "How do you know this?"

"I overheard him speaking with another man—I do not know who—and he murmured that he wanted you dead, and such were the plans of the Hashshashin—" Sarah plucked at his sleeves, earnest and pleading. "I do not want you to die," she whispered. "So I ran away."

"It was very brave of you," he told her. "Where does your cousin live?"

Indecision. She was not entirely his yet—but he waited, and after a moment she lowered her eyes and gave him an address, as he had known she would; ah, he could be patient when he wanted to, and he would lay open her soul with his scalpel and cast light onto all her secrets, but she would come to the table of her own free will.

"Reynard," he said, nodding at the knight. "Take five men and go to the house. Do what you must do there." The man bowed and ran off. Garnier put his arm around Sarah's shoulders and gently steered her through the gate and into the courtyard. "You are safe now," he told her. "Your cousin cannot hurt you here."

She nodded, shivering, but said nothing.

"Come," he said. "Come to my room, and have something to drink, and tell me everything you know about the assassins and your cousin."

--

Once they were alone—in his personal quarters this time, with the door locked and all his servants sent away—Garnier opened his cabinet and took out a bottle of wine. He poured out two goblets, and Sarah suddenly gasped softly and said, "My lord, the window—"

He glanced at it. It was open. "Do not fear," he told her. "There are two guards on patrol below."

"Please," she said, trembling. "Shut it. For me."

"If you wish." Garnier set down the wine, went to the windows, and pulled the shutters closed. When he turned back, Sarah was at the table, looking at him wide-eyed over the bottle of wine, with one of the goblets in her hand.

"Your knights," she said. "I mean no insult, but—"

"They are the best in the world," Garnier said, picking up his own goblet. He downed it in one gulp. "And if they cannot protect you," he promised, "I will."

She was still pale, even after she took a sip of her own wine. "But the assassins are everywhere," she whispered, setting the goblet down on the table. "My cousin is determined. He will not let me go."

Garnier knelt before her and took her hand. "I will not let him have you."

"You are so brave," she said, and shook off her veil. Her shining dark hair was coiled and pinned back neatly; Garnier imagined what it would be like tumbled across her shoulders, and drew himself back quickly from such salacious thoughts.

"Thank you," he said at last.

"And you are so kind to me," Sarah added, gazing at him. "Thank you—for everything you've done. For protecting me."

"How could I do otherwise?" Her fingers were so cold. But—strange. His were going numb.

"You could have cast me aside, but you did not. You could have left me to my cousin, but you did not."

"Of course I could not have done that." Now his entire hand was numb. Frowning, Garnier stood. The room spun. "You are quite safe here, I assure you," he said, grasping for the table.

"My lord?" Now she was on her feet as well, her eyes dark and worried. "Are you all right?"

He took a step toward her and tripped. "Perhaps you should lie down," Sarah said, catching him. She was stronger than he'd expected. Garnier let her help him to the bed; by the time they made their way across the room, he had lost sensation in his arms and legs, and the room was going dark.

Poison.

"Sarah," he gasped out. "The wine—"

"Have you had too much?" she asked, kneeling, her fingers flying to his neck to check his pulse.

Paralysis, he thought fuzzily. The assassins—but no, he was safe enough, this would not kill him, and his men surrounded the hospital on all sides tonight—but how had he been poisoned? "No," he managed. It was growing harder to breathe. "Poison. Get—my assistant—"

But Sarah was not going to the door. She was watching him, clear-eyed and steady, with her fingers against his throat; why had she not gone to the door? He needed—something. An antidote. He was dying perhaps, he needed to impress upon her the urgency of the situation; a wave of dizziness, and when the dancing lights had passed he looked up and she said, "Can you move?"

He tried. His fingers twitched, and lay still. "No—"

"Good," Sarah said, and rose to her feet.

Good? He closed his eyes and opened them again, his breath coming in short gasps now, and Sarah was still not going to the door; she was reaching up to her hair, a pin coming away in her hand—long and thin and glittering needle-sharp in the fading light.

He needed an antidote, he tried to tell her. He needed his assistant. He needed her to hurry, before the paralysis overtook his tongue and stilled his breathing. "Sarah—"

She bent over him. He tried to move, but sensation would not come.

Everything had gone blurry, but he could see her face in sharp relief, all the lines and planes and angles outlined in light as though she were some sort of angel; "Go with God," she murmured, and her voice was soft, like feathers, like doves.

There was a sharp, stabbing pain behind his left ear.

Then: nothingness.

* * *

A/N: Because Altair can't have all the fun, can he? Also, Garnier de Naplouse is crazy in too many ways to list and really, really creepy.

Three guesses for who Sarah is! Actually, you should save those guesses for figuring out where this goes in the Seduction Study continuum. All will become clear! But I couldn't resist posting this. I would love to hear wild theories if anyone comes up with any.

Notes: "Pro Utilitate Hominum" was the creed of the Knights Hospitalier, which means "in the service of humanity." "Bismi-Ilahi ar-rahmani ar-rahim" is the preface to most of the suras in the Qu'ran, and it really does translate to "in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful," which I thought very appropriate. Also, the theme of the innocent, virtuous heathen woman converting to Christianity because it is the One True Faith as seen from the POV of a westerner was just too, too obvious to pass up here. (If anyone wants a literary example, Cervantes does a particularly eye-rolling one in Don Quixote with his story of Maria and the captured crusader, though to be fair the entire thing was intended as a parody.)


	2. B: And Pearls Rained Down, First

**Appendix B: And Pearls Rained Down, First**

* * *

I.

What she flaunted on her hand, my hand could not grasp

She sapped my strength by tracing on her palm....

Like the paths of ants upon her fingertips,

Or a meadow bejeweled with hailstones by the clouds.

From every direction, with the bow of her brow

and the arrow of her eye, she has aimed at my heart.

In her hand, her comb is stretched out as a trap

For hunting my heart from inside my body.

--Yazid bin Mu'Awiya

* * *

When she was fifteen, Rasha discovered—quite by accident—that she was beautiful. The arms master had finally let her into the sparring ring and her opponent was a novice three years older than she, so Rasha had fully expected to be beaten, bruised, and sore by the time the match was over.

Instead, she managed to disarm him in the first three minutes. Rasha blinked at him, a little surprised that she was still standing and his practice sword had gone flying across the ring, and her opponent stared back at her, looking rather startled himself.

"Jamal!" the arms master snapped from his ringside position. He sounded irritated. "Pay attention!"

"Yes, sir," Jamal muttered, and went to pick up his sword.

This time he lasted ten minutes.

The arms master came storming into the ring, a burly, towering figure in white linen and red silk, and cuffed Jamal soundly on the ear. "Have you taken ill in the head?" he demanded, a ferocious scowl plastered across his face. "To watch you, one would think this is your first time with a blade. You disgrace yourself."

"But—"

"Get out," the arms master said, picking up the practice blade himself. "Go drill with the second-years until you can hold a sword without dropping it."

Jamal skulked off. Rasha faced the arms master instead, and when her lesson was over she _was_ beaten, bruised, and sore, and quite a crowd had gathered to watch her lose badly at fencing.

But then the next day the same thing happened.

Well, it was a different novice, but Rasha managed to beat him far too handily—mostly, it seemed, because he was reluctant to hit her. She cornered him afterwards and demanded to know why he had let her win, and the young man explained—with considerable amounts of blushing, stammering, and general clumsiness—that she was a girl, and it was rude to hit girls, and also, she should probably stop with the sword-fighting before she hurt herself. Disgusted, Rasha went stomping off to complain to Sarai and Isra.

But Sarai only shrugged and said that boys were strange, and Isra was suffering from a different sort of unfairness altogether, so neither of the were much help. Shadha wasn't any help at all. When Rasha went to her, she merely suggested wryly that Rasha had had enough sword lessons, which made Rasha backtrack in a hurry.

Finally it was Khalid who explained it to her.

"You are a beautiful young woman," he told her, smiling. "They are loathe to fight you. It is only to be expected."

"That's ridiculous," Rasha said, fuming. "The arms master fought him. And Kaddar used to push me into fountains _all the time_."

"Ah, well," Khalid said, "unless Rakid was lying, you were the one doing much of the pushing. And, in any case, the arms master is older and wiser. You cannot expect the novices to be the same."

"I still think it's ridiculous," Rasha pronounced.

But his words made her think. Rasha crept into Shadha's room one morning and examined herself in the mirror there, and if she was not so vain as to think herself incomparably lovely, she did have to admit that she was, at the very least, quite pretty. Too pretty to expect young men to be undistracted when they looked at her—years of living in the Garden with the Sacred Blossoms had taught her that much about beauty, at least—and it neatly explained the odd incidents in the sparring ring.

Not, of course, that having an explanation improved the situation at all.

--

It wasn't just her partners in the sparring ring. Suddenly all the men in Masyaf realized that Rasha had a pretty face and—well, _breasts_—and every time she went to the marketplace, she discovered that there were swarms of young men offering to buy her things, or carry her basket for her, or take her home and introduce her to carnal delights.

Only the man who had made the last offer had worded it a lot less politely. There had also been a great deal of unnecessary physical contact on his part; the man subsequently discovered, much to his surprise, that rudeness was dangerous and could lead to a broken nose.

"He's going to complain to Al Mualim," Sarai observed, as the man skulked off muttering curses and threats.

"Let him," Rasha said, scowling. "I hope he _does_. Then I could hit him again when he comes to the fortress."

"Let's just go," Isra said, tugging at her sleeve. "Everyone's staring. Rasha—"

"What?"

"Maybe you should wear your veil?"

"It's not my fault he's an idiot," Rasha said darkly.

--

Matters did not improve from there.

In fact, Shadha informed her, it would only get worse as she grew older. "Or at least," Shadha added wryly, "until you reach forty, and your looks begin to fade."

Rasha groaned.

"Oh, don't complain," Shadha said, utterly unsympathetic. "Most girls would kill to have that sort of attention lavished upon them."

"But no one will hit me!" Rasha complained anyway. "And—and they don't even know me! Why do they care about how heavy my basket is?"

Shadha snorted. "Because they are men, and they wish to lie with you," she said briskly. "Do try not to maim any of them, Rasha, great though the temptation might be."

Rasha sighed.

She left to go to the sparring ring, where the arms master had begun to pair her with far older opponents. Rasha was consistently outmatched but at least the experienced assassins did not hesitate when they saw her—or if they did, they hid it considerably better. She supposed that if it were a choice between not learning anything and sporting bruises _all the time_, she would pick the bruises.

Still, it all seemed ridiculous. She could carry her own damned baskets.

--

When Isra told her that Kaddar was returning to Masyaf, Rasha didn't know what to think. At first she was gloomy, because doubtless Kaddar would gloat about all the new things he'd learned, and then they'd get into a fight, and then he'd push her into some fountain or other because doubtless he was stronger than her by now. But on the other hand, if Kaddar was willing to push her into fountains, then she might finally have a sparring partner who didn't blush and drop his sword every time the neckline of her shirt dipped too low, because really, when had Kaddar ever shrunk from a fight?

But what if he didn't think she was pretty? Rasha wasn't entirely sure why she cared, only that she did, and she spent a fretful night staring at the ceiling and wondering what on earth was wrong with her. She couldn't decide which was worse: if Kaddar suddenly began offering to carry her baskets for her, or if he didn't. Clearly she was going mad. And it was a stupid issue anyway. And she didn't care.

On the day Kaddar was scheduled to return, Rasha got up and resolutely ignored that fact. In the morning she went to the library and wrote an essay on the Ayyubid succession. Then she had lunch. Then she ran through some exercises in the training yard. Then she went to the sparring ring, where the arms master had apparently run out of experienced assassins willing to fight her, so Rasha dueled a gangly fourteen-year-old boy who tripped over himself whenever she smiled at him.

Viciously, she made sure to smile at him a lot. The duel was over in minutes.

When she looked up, Kaddar was watching her.

He must have arrived from Damascus early. Rasha was suddenly self-conscious about the dust in her hair, and self-conscious that she was self conscious; she straightened up, shook back her hair, and scowled at him. Kaddar was standing at the edge of the ring, arms crossed over his chest. He caught her eye and called out, "He was going easy on you," and there was the most infuriating smirk on his lips.

She shot back, "Then _you_ come in here and fight me, if you're so good."

He glanced at the arms master, who nodded his permission. Kaddar picked up a practice sword from the rack and stepped into the ring just as the novice went slinking out; he grinned at her and moved without any warning. She felt the force of his blow all the way to her shoulders when she brought up her sword to block.

Rasha laughed, delighted.

And suddenly all her self-consciousness was gone.

--

Kaddar came and found her in the Garden that night, after she had washed the dust from her hair and shared the whole tale with Sarai and Isra, and he sat down on the grass beside her and said: "I'm surprised that Al Mualim lets you near the swords."

"What are you doing here?" Rasha demanded.

"I'm seventeen," Kaddar said. "I'm allowed in here now, remember?"

Of course she remembered. He was sitting next to her, looking incredibly smug about it; how was she supposed to forget? "Well, the Blossoms are over there," Rasha grumbled, waving at the gazebo.

"I came in here to see _you_," Kaddar said.

She eyed him suspiciously. Kaddar didn't seem to notice. "Let's go up the mountain," he suggested, twirling a blade of grass between his fingertips.

"What, _now_?"

Kaddar grinned. "Why not?"

She didn't have to consider it for long. "Fine."

"Let's go, then," he said, rolling to his feet.

Rasha shook her veil off her shoulders and stuffed it underneath a shrub. It was the work of moments to scale the wall, and then the two of them were scrambling up the mountainside with the lights from the garden lanterns growing ever fainter as they ascended. They climbed in silence, darkness all around them and stars up above, and the night air smelled like damp earth and green things growing and just the faintest hint of a summer storm.

"I think it's going to rain," Rasha called out.

Kaddar leaned back and caught her hand. "I like rain," he remarked, helping her onto a large, flat-topped rock. Not that she couldn't have managed it on her own. But he was warm and there was an interesting pattern of calluses on his palm and—and—

Rasha dropped his hand quickly and sat down. "You like rain?" she demanded suspiciously.

"Well, don't tell me you _mind_," Kaddar said, dropping down next to her. "It's only water. And you never seemed to care abut getting wet when you were shoving me into fountains, remember?"

"Because I was too angry to care," Rasha retorted. She half-wished their was a fountain around now, just so she could push him in. "Why did I come up here?" she grumbled, leaning back against the stone to look up at the stars. "I don't even like you."

"Yes, you do," Kaddar said, and kissed her.

Rasha was so surprised that she forgot to punch him. He smelled nice and his lips were soft and Kaddar could do some _very_ interesting things with his tongue, so by the time she got around to remembering that she should probably push him off the mountainside, Rasha wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to; her arms were around his neck and he was half on top of her anyway, and she was kissing him back, and in the darkness she could feel the curve of his smile against her mouth.

There had been a man in the marketplace who'd made her an offer—

The thought was sudden and unwelcome. Rasha scrambled away, her heart thudding painfully against her ribs, and disappointment was welling up in her like a breaking storm. Kaddar sat up and stared after her in bewilderment. "What is it?" he wanted to know.

She pressed her fingers against her lips and wondered why her eyes were stinging. "You're only doing this because I'm _pretty_," Rasha said gloomily.

She couldn't see his face, but Kaddar was emanating a very puzzled sort of silence. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"What?" he said finally.

And Rasha found herself stumbling through a barely-coherent explanation of baskets, and sparring matches, and men who had to be deterred by breaking their noses, and how none of this would have happened if she hadn't become _extremely pretty_ practically _overnight_—

—and after a while Rasha stopped talking because she realized that Kaddar was rolling his eyes.

She closed her mouth. Then: "Well, it's _true_."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kaddar said, taking her hand. "You've always been beautiful."

* * *

A/N: (OMG SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL IT'S LIKE A CURSE) This scores a whopping 50 on the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test, which means "Kill it dead" according to the rating system. Hmm. I didn't think it was _that_ bad. Still, cool test—check it out if you get the chance, it's pretty funny.

Notes: The poem is by Yazid bin Mu'awiya, a seventh century caliph of the Umayyads; a few hundred years before the Third Crusade, but it's pretty fitting. I briefly considered using passages from the Song of Solomon, but that's even older, and I wanted to give this story a slightly more historically accurate cultural reference. Slightly.


	3. B: And Pearls Rained Down, Second

**Appendix B: And Pearls Rained Down, Second**

* * *

II.  
She is radiant: the sun would be ashamed to rise  
Again on anyone, if only it saw her.  
I requested her companionship; she replied, "_Don't be a fool!__  
__The one who wishes to draw near me will die of grief!_"  
She added, "_How many of my ardent victims have died passionately__  
__In love, unable to even utter a word._"  
I said, "_May the merciful save me from error!__  
__But a lover lacks patience and endurance._"

--Yazid bin Mu'Awiya

* * *

In Acre, the assassin who pretended to be Rasha's husband bought them a house in a quiet corner of the city. There was a high-walled courtyard, ringed with benches and flowers and paved with stone, and every morning they would go there together, and Siraj would toss her a sword, and the two of them would spar. He was at least thirty—one of the best assassins in the city, assigned to her to keep her safe, and he was not the sort of man who might shrink from teaching her swordplay.

Rasha loved those mornings. The two of them went around the courtyard, circling, and there was the bright clash of steel on steel that rang out into the air. She was getting better with the blade; she could almost disarm Siraj now, and these days she was not the only one walking away with bruises afterwards.

Today, the sun was in her eyes.

Rasha squinted. She tried to edge around into the shadow of the wall, but Siraj noticed and came swinging forth to stop her. She ducked. Sun and shadow and the sweep of the blunted practice sword above her head; then a sidestep, another, and a parry, and Siraj was pressing forward all in a flurry of blows that forced her back to the center of the courtyard.

With the sun in her eyes.

Rasha sighed.

"Come now," Siraj chided. "Will you wait all day for the sun to move to a more convenient position? Will you have the luxury of circling about for a perfect opening when you are surrounded on three sides and there are many enemies?"

"You said that last week and then tripped me on my attack," Rasha retorted, wary. "I'm not falling for that again."

Siraj laughed. "So you've been learning," he said approvingly. His eyes, for a moment, flicked past her shoulder, and back again. "Perhaps it's time to try something different—how will you fare against two opponents?"

Rasha frowned. They were the only ones in the courtyard—

But Siraj was nodding at someone behind her, and there was the scrape of leather against stone, and Rasha swung around in time to see a shadow detach itself from the second floor balcony of the house and come at her with twin knives.

Rasha cursed. She ducked, sidestepped, and thrust, and Kaddar was dancing away from the edge of her sword with a wide grin on his face and Siraj was attacking from the other side. She twisted around. Her foot connected with his knee as she kicked out.

"Clever," Kaddar called. "But you left your side open—"

"Oh, shut up," Rasha snapped, and leaped behind a bench. And then, fuming, she slashed at Siraj to get him out of the way and flung a flowerpot at Kaddar with her free hand.

He hadn't been expecting that. It hit him full in the stomach and he stumbled back, looking startled; the pot fell to the ground and shattered, in the next moment she was over the bench again, the flat of her sword thudding onto Kaddar's shoulder before he could get his knives up, and "Dead," Rasha pronounced, even as Siraj touched his blade to her neck.

"So are you," Kaddar pointed out.

It had been worth it, and Rasha said so. Siraj let his blade drop, looking amused. "Well," he said. "That was well done, Rasha. And Kaddar, it is good to see you well—but aren't you supposed to be at the bureau?"

"Yes," Kaddar said cheerfully. "The rafik gave me permission to visit."

"You were not scheduled to arrive until later today."

Kaddar bowed. "I made good time on the roads last night."

"Very dedicated of you," Siraj remarked, sheathing his sword. "If you have any letters for me—"

"Just one," Kaddar said, drawing it out of his shirt and handing it over. Siraj took it. Rasha caught a glimpse of Al Mualim's seal before he was tucking it away into his pocket.

"I feel a pressing need to be elsewhere," said the man who was supposed to be Rasha's husband. "Do try not to break anything else—the rafik keeps an account on this house."

And then Siraj walked away. The door swung shut after him. Rasha stared.

"I have a letter for you, too," Kaddar offered. "Several, actually. Do you want to see them?"

"What are you doing here?" Rasha demanded, slamming her practice sword back into its sheath with more force than was strictly necessary.

"Running courier from Masyaf to Acre," Kaddar said. He followed her as she headed back into the house and left her sword on a weapons rack in the hallway. "Through Damascus, actually, if you have anything for the bureau there—"

"I meant," Rasha said through gritted teeth, "what are you doing _here_, in my house?"

"I thought you'd be happy to see me."

She was sweaty and disheveled and really rather bruised, and Kaddar was grinning at her from the sunlight coming in from the garden, and maybe she _was_ happy to see him but Rasha couldn't tell through the suddenly-frantic fluttering in her chest.

"I didn't expect you," she said instead. And: "I'm going to clean up. Go away."

"I'll be in the front room, then," Kaddar said, tossing her the letters. "Don't take too long, will you?"

As though she would take orders from _him_. Rasha huffed, but Kaddar was already wandering away and didn't see. She stormed upstairs to her room, furious. She flung the letters onto her bed, still furious. It wasn't until Rasha had stripped off her shirt and dunked her head into a basinful of water that she wondered _why_ she was furious, and after a puzzled moment of dripping onto the floorboards she had to admit to herself that she really didn't have a good reason.

Rasha scowled. Her reflection in the mirror scowled back. Impatient with herself, she finished washing, got dressed again, and—because she didn't know what she'd say to Kaddar if she ever did decide to go back downstairs—Rasha picked up the letters and flicked through them.

There was a long, rambling one from Isra, marked with the sign of the Damascus bureau. There was a missive from Shadha—instructions from Masyaf, probably.

And, from Al Mualim, a one-page note, folded into thirds and stamped with his personal seal. All of her orders came through Shadha—why was Al Mualim writing to her? Frowning, Rasha tore the letter open. Within was a small ink sketch of a sun's eye tulip and the words: _To facilitate your activities in Acre, I am awarding you authority over the bureau entire._

Well. She hadn't been expecting that.

She wasn't even sure what it meant. Preoccupied now, Rasha went downstairs. Kaddar was in the front room, as he had said; she thrust the note at him when he rose to greet her, and demanded, "What is Al Mualim _doing_?"

"He's giving you authority over every assassin in Acre," Kaddar said, rolling his eyes. He thrust the note back. "I would have thought it was obvious."

"But—_why?_" Rasha sputtered.

Kaddar shrugged. "For some reason," he said dryly, "Al Mualim thinks you need official permission to order us about. Come on, Rasha, it isn't as though you haven't been telling everyone what to do from the moment you got here."

"I am not _bossy_," Rasha said, fuming. "And besides, _you_ don't even live here."

"So?"

She stared at him. She didn't really have a point, Rasha acknowledged grumpily, crumpling up the note and shoving it into her pocket. "Does the rafik know?"

"He got a letter, too. So did your husband."

Oh. So that had been what that was. Rasha sighed. Kaddar touched her cheek.

"I came all the way from Masyaf to see you," he said, only half teasing. "Are you going to be angry with me the entire three days I'm here? Let's go visit the markets."

"You'll probably push me into a fountain."

"That was the _once_," Kaddar said. "I don't know why you keep bringing it up. Anyway, that was ten years ago, and you kept trying to pick fights with me."

"You kept trying to pick fights with _me_!" Rasha said, indignant.

"Well, I'm not now, am I?"

She blinked at him. "Why not?"

"I'm here for three days," Kaddar said patiently. "I'd rather not spend it all fighting with you. Are you going to let me kiss you, or should I go back to the bureau and get some sleep?"

"Well," Rasha said, feeling herself flush. "I mean—if you like—"

His fingers tangled in her hair. He pulled her against him, his mouth on hers, and Rasha closed her eyes and wished that she didn't turn into such a dithering _idiot_ when Kaddar was around. She never blushed or stammered or started feeling faint when other men told her she was pretty or tried to kiss her.

Not that Kaddar _had_ told her that he found her pretty. She was just—extrapolating. From the fact that he seemed to like her quite a bit. She was dithering again.

"I have to go," Rasha said reluctantly, breaking away. "I have work to do. Ships are coming in—"

"And you must keep track of them for Al Mualim." Kaddar let go of her. "I'll see you at dinner."

"—what?"

"Dinner," Kaddar said again. He was walking out of the room backwards, so that he could still look at her. "I'll come by in the evening, shall I?"

"No one's invited you to dinner," Rasha sputtered.

"You just did."

"I did not!"

He paused by the door. "Of course you did," Kaddar said, grinning. "You looked at me and your eyes said, _oh Kaddar, please come here for dinner tonight, and also I think you're wonderful and clever and an excellent swordsman_—"

Rasha threw a cushion at him. Laughing, he ducked out the door and was gone. The cushion thudded into the wall and dropped down to the floor with a faint thump—it had missed by a good three feet, Rasha was disgruntled to note.

--

"Kaddar's invited himself to dinner," Rasha announced without preamble, bursting into her husband's study. Siraj looked up from his desk.

"Oh," he said, not sounding troubled in the least. "All right. Are you going out? Don't forget to stop by the guardhouse near the docks—"

"I _know_," Rasha said, impatient. "The captain's a Templar spy. I've been feeding him false information for the past _month_. Are you just going to let Kaddar come in here and—and—"

"Seduce my wife?" Siraj asked dryly. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her. "My wife outranks me at the moment, as Al Mualim has just informed me. Rasha, if you do not want to see him, then send him away."

Oh. She could, couldn't she?

Well, Rasha resolved, she would do just that.

--

Rasha went to the bureau late in the afternoon, with every intention of informing Kaddar that he could not just _invite_ himself to dinner whenever he felt like it, but then the rafik made some comment about young lovers, and Rasha was too busy sputtering in indignation to protest when Kaddar—who apparently thought all of this was _very funny_—put his arm around her and pulled her away.

"I don't know why you're laughing," Rasha said grumpily, as they went out onto the dusty street. "This isn't amusing in the least."

He merely grinned at her. Somehow Rasha forgot what she had been going to say, and then the two of them were at her house and it was too late to chase him off, and for _some reason_ Siraj had left them dinner in the kitchen and a note saying that he would be out until very late, possibly tomorrow, and not to wait up. Rasha groaned.

"My husband," she said, "_wants_ me to have an affair."

"This would probably be easier if he did try to stop you," Kaddar remarked. He was poking about at the covered dishes Siraj had left on the table. "Who made all this?"

"A cook comes in around noon," Rasha said. And: "How would it be easier if he tried to stop me?"

Kaddar rolled his eyes. "Because if he had, the very first thing you would do would be to sneak out and see me."

Rasha had to admit to herself that that was probably true.

"Of course it's true," Kaddar said. "You were always doing things you weren't supposed to, like getting into fights."

"That was years ago," Rasha retorted. Kaddar, laughing, caught her wrist, and then they were kissing again—slow and sweet and languorous, his hands on her skin as he pushed her up against the wall, and Rasha was wondering what it was about Kaddar that didn't make her want to punch him when he touched her. He was—really nice, actually. She rather thought she liked him. And—and—

"I'm supposed to married," Rasha blurted out.

Kaddar pulled away a little, but only so that he could look down at her and raise his eyebrows. "Yes," he said patiently. "I know."

"I _mean_," she said, "Siraj doesn't—he hasn't—"

Now he just looked amused. "—outraged your virtue?"

"Well, yes," Rasha said, acutely aware that her face was very hot. "But, I mean, I don't see why you should get to. Outrage my virtue, that is. I mean—oh, I don't even know what I mean."

She buried her face against his shoulder, horribly embarrassed. Kaddar just laughed and patted her on the back. "I love you," he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Stop making such a fuss about it. Can we have dinner now? You did go to all the trouble of inviting me."

* * *

A/N: Rasha has always wanted a dangerous, illicit romance so that she can be all rebellious and secretive about it. Kaddar thinks its cute.

That was pretty fluffy, wasn't it? Huh. I suppose I have to get it out of my system somehow. We'll see where this goes. Timeline: in Acre (before the siege, obviously); ten years ago Kaddar was eleven and pushing Rasha into fountains, so now he is twenty-one and she is twenty and it is (very early) spring of 1189 while Isra is in Damascus complaining about Tamir. Yay continuity!


	4. C: Sarai

**Appendix C: Sarai

* * *

**

Sarai is three years old when her mother dies.

It is her very first memory—sitting in the dust outside her grandfather's house, a bowl of palm dates at her feet, and Sarai is watching the sun go down over the mountains in Masyaf. Orange and gold and crimson, all against the sky, and the fortress of the assassins is laid out with banners and the glint of steel—

Inside the house, her mother is screaming. Sarai is trying not to think of blood. The sound goes on for a very long time in her memories; it is night when the world is quiet again, and for a moment Sarai leans back and listens to the wind blowing through the straggling branches of the tree above her, but in the next moment the front door is slamming open and her grandfather is storming out. Behind him a woman follows. Not Sarai's mother.

The midwife, Sarai will remember later. She is gesturing wildly and saying something—Sarai does not understand yet, but there are words like _blood_ and _difficulties_ and _fever_. Her grandfather is knocking the potted plants from the garden wall and shouting about assassins. Sarai scrambles up when his eyes land on her. _Damn him_, her grandfather says again, and starts toward her with a terrifying expression on his face. _Damn them all—my daughter—MY daughter—_

The midwife catches at his arm. He shakes her off. Sarai does not move, even when he seizes her by the shoulder and wrenches her around to face him. _You_, he says. _You—see what that father of yours has done—_

_Stop this_, the midwife snaps. _Get back inside. Your daughter is not dead yet._

But she is dead by morning.

--

Sarai falls asleep in the front garden. At sunrise the midwife takes her back inside the house and leaves her in the kitchen; the cook gives her a piece of bread and tucks her away behind the table. Everything is very still and very quiet, tension hanging in the air like the calm before the storm. Sarai chews on her bread and wishes herself invisible. She cannot decide if she is afraid or not.

The maid stops by later. She confers with the cook in low voices; after a moment or two they glance over at Sarai and the both of them fall silent. It is a very strange morning. At noon the cook is slicing up vegetables for lunch, because Sarai is hungry, and the storm finally breaks as her grandfather marches in all grim-faced and orders the cook out of the way. _So the assassins wanted her so badly_, he says to Sarai, dragging her out from beneath the table. A chair overturns, two dishes shatter; he does not seem to notice either. _Well, they can have you too, then—I am through with them, I am through with you—go up to that damned fortress of theirs and tell them my daughter is dead—_

He picks her up. He takes her out of the house. People stare at them as they go through the streets of Masyaf, but no one makes a move to stop him; in her grandfather's arms, Sarai is too frightened to cry.

At the fortress gates, the assassin tries to protest, but her grandfather sets her down onto the dusty ground and shoves her forward. _She's yours_, he tells the assassin. _Do with her as you will, I do not want her—_

_Grandfather_, says Sarai, not quite brave enough to catch at his sleeve. He turns on her.

_You have another grandfather in that fortress_, he snaps at her, furious and bitter. _Go knock at his door. You are no relation of mine, and I am through with you._

She stares after him as he strides back down the mountain. He does not look back.

Sarai does not speak again for months and months afterward.

--

She meets her father. Once.

He is recalled from Jerusalem just for the occasion, Shadha tells her. He has important work there. Jerusalem is a grand city—perhaps she would like to see it sometime? Smile, Sarai, your father has come a very long way to see you.

He is a tall man with a rough, angled face and slender hands. He kisses Sarai on the forehead and calls her a good girl and gives her a doll to play with. He is very sad, she thinks; perhaps he misses her mother? But then he goes away again, after a day or two, and Sarai never does gets a chance to ask him.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem does not take kindly to Hashshashin spies. Sarai learns early that being an assassin is a dangerous line of work.

--

She sees her grandfather again. She is six years old, and Rasha is there, and her grandfather shouts at her in the Masyaf marketplace—words she does not quite understand, and curses, and his eyes are red-rimmed and he looks very old. It is Rasha that pulls her away. And then, later, Shadha explains that Sarai should not see her grandfather anymore.

She writes to him instead. It's the first thing she does, when she learns how, and she sends him letters for years and years afterwards—long, long past the time when anyone else would have stopped, but then, Sarai has always known that she can be stubborn. He never answers. She isn't sure if he reads them or simply tosses them onto the fire unopened; she supposes that it does not matter.

_You are no relation of mine_, he had said. _I am through with you. You have another grandfather in that fortress; go knock at his door_.

She wonders, sometimes, if either of them ever loved her.


	5. D: Notes for CH23

2) Hardcore Muslims, women, and the world of the Third Crusade: How historically accurate is my portrayal of empowered females in the culture of the time and place?

The long answer:

So I guess there's this image of the Middle East, and Islam in general, being all Hardcore in their approach to women's rights in that they don't acknowledge they exist. It's certainly true that a lot of fundamentalist Islamic states aren't onboard with the whole equality thing (cough Saudi Arabia cough cough)—what with the whole forced marriages, and honor killings, and having to stay inside the house unless you're escorted by a male relative, and stonings, and so forth. But it's also true that this is the twenty-first century, and Assassin's Creed takes place in the twelfth. The two cultures are separated by nine hundred years, which is a lot of time for change—hell, there's been plenty of change in the past _ninety_ years, what with various governments overthrowing each other and going "okay, veils on now" and then "nevermind, wear what you want" and then "whoops we changed our minds again, burqas all around" like some kind of bi-polar fashion police. The current perception in the Western world (which is where I live, so I'll be writing this from that particular point of view) is that Muslim women are abused, Muslim men are oppressive, and the entirety of the Middle East is a breeding ground for religious fanatics who think nothing of driving airplanes into tall buildings. A lot of this is true, but it's also missing a lot of subtleties, and there's a ton of arguments on both sides—but none of that really _matters_, because, again, AC is set in the twelfth century, and it's an entirely different culture from what exists today.

(Well, okay, it's unfair to say "entirely" since today's culture is descended from yesterday's, but just bear with me.)

I mean, take coffee. That's a pretty standard Middle East-ish thing, right? But coffee beans didn't start getting cultivated until, like, the 13th century, and then only in a few rare places—so coffee was definitely something that couldn't have been in AC1. In the sequel, Ezio meets a guy (Antonio) who introduces him to a new drink called _caffa_ that's just making a presence in Italy—and that's like, 1500-ish, before the _concept_ of coffee gets established enough in the Middle East for them to start exporting it to other places which are relatively close by; the port cities along the Syrian coast (like Acre) had been sending ships to Cyprus and Sicily for _centuries_.

For something more controversial, take Islamic law. It's called sharia and it's ostensibly based off the Koran, and the idea is to make a set of laws that are in accordance with what God (via Mohammed) says you should do. But the Koran is centuries and centuries old—and the law itself is a bunch of guys trying to guess at what Muhammad meant (if you're feeling charitable) or a bunch of guys trying to push their own agendas under the guise of religious piety (if you're not feeling charitable). If you take that down through the centuries, you end up with other people second-guessing those original guys, and more people third-guessing _them_, and so on, and after a while (not even a very long while) you can see how these laws get distorted. If you live in the United States: think about how the Supreme Court argues over the interpretation of the Constitution _all the damn time_. It's "but do you really think the Founding Fathers wanted to allow abortion" and "does this clause about free speech still hold if you're trying to incite panic" and "oh man, Jefferson would've been _really pissed_ to see the states pulling this stuff on us, but maybe Madison would've approved." No one knows, because the original writers are dead; everyone's just making their best guess, and that best guess changes over time as different people come to power. So the laws under Saladin would've been different, and had a different interpretation and different degrees of enforcement, than the laws that are in effect today.

It's certainly not true that they were _completely_ different, but assuming that AC1 is like Saudi Arabia except with hooded assassins would be inaccurate. Wine and alcoholic beverages, for example, are banned under sharia because Mohammed specifically said not to touch them (so, less wiggle room for interpretation there) but back in the twelfth century there wasn't much else to drink. The water had bacteria and you really didn't want to die from dysentery. So people drank wine and beer and no one cared that much, unless you were super-religious—I mean, look at Abu'l Nuquod, who filled an entire fountain with wine in Damascus which was _very firmly_ in Saracen territory, and sure, he was evil, but none of his guests had any qualms about dipping their goblets into the fountain. And now look at Saudi Arabia, where you can get _whipped_ for possession. (I promise I will try to pick on Saudi Arabia less, but it's so easy. :| )

So anyway, when it's not Brutal Islamic Regime being imagined into place, it's usually something like out of the fairy tales of old Persia, with sultans and harems and flying carpets, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that (because come on, who'd say no to a flying carpet?) but it's also not AC1. Harems weren't that sexy, first of all. Sure, if you're a sultan or a caliph or an all-around important rich guy, you could have a bunch of concubines (and no more than four wives) at your beck and call—but harems weren't just for your ladyloves, they were also places for the other women in your household, like your mother and your aunts and your grandma, and also for the children too young to be given their own rooms elsewhere. You'd go in and order your concubines to do a sexy dance for you, but halfway through your mother comes in and starts nagging about how you never visit anymore, and then your aunt tries to show you her new baby, except that he throws up on your shoes—so yeah, that's sexytimes ruined. Harems were a place to live first and foremost, and it was only later that they became a power fantasy for (mostly European) males, and I will stop here before I go rambling on about orientalism. (But Edward Said wrote a very nice book, which you should read if you're interested.)

Also, the fairy tale image is too…I dunno, homogenous? The population wasn't all vaguely-brown Muslim people. It was the Crusades, first of all, and there were plenty of Crusaders in the Middle East at the time—and not just the armies imported from France and Italy, but natives too: kings and princes who had been in the area for ages, like the Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Tripoli. And, of course, the big cities had plenty of non-Muslims: Damascus would get all the far-flung traders coming in from the Silk Road, Jerusalem would get two hundred different kinds of pilgrims, and Acre was a port city where ships would go to Italy and Egypt and beyond. There were universities there. They were seats of government. They had, like, cool stuff that attracted all sorts of tourists. These were big cosmopolitan cities, some of the most important cities in the world at the time, and there was plenty of diversity because you can't _become_ a big city without being at the crossroads of something. (I hope that came through in the story. I tried to go for "big" and "cosmopolitan" in Damascus and Jerusalem, but Isra doesn't actually get out that much, sadly.)

Okay. Women specifically.

They were oppressed to varying degrees, but so were women everywhere else in the world, because this was way before feminism. There's a whole thing about the hidden woman—ie, if you were a woman, you stayed inside the house where no one could see you—but for the bulk of the population this would have immensely impractical; you can't afford to discount half your workforce when your entire economy is based on agriculture and you haven't invented tractors yet. If you were poor, you went out in the fields and did work like anyone else, woman or not, and you wore veils because this is the Middle East and it gets really hot in the middle of the day. On the other hand, if you were rich then you _could_ afford to hide your women this way, and plenty of people did, but once you start talking about money then the rules get bent. Wealthy noble women did participate in public life: they had political power via influence husbands/sons/brothers, they could donate money for charitable causes like building schools or libraries, they could get educations and involve themselves in the academics of the day. They had to be discreet, but they weren't powerless. Of course it would take a _very_ indulgent parent to put up with Rasha (and she's pretty much unmarriageable) but girls like Isra and Sarai would've been accepted, if you took out the part where they're secretly Assassins.

Anyway it doesn't matter if Isra is a believable character or not in the context of the Third Crusade; what's more important is that she be believable in the context of the Assassin's Creed universe, which takes a lot of liberties with history as it is, and that everything I write is internally consistent. So thanks for reading this, and sorry if it's not very organized since I wrote it on the fly, and please don't message me asking for sources because I'm too lazy to look them up because it's two in the morning. Oh, and feel free to e-mail/review/whatever with your own thoughts, I'd love to hear them, but please don't expect a reply. (Although if someone cares enough to start a forum discussion or something, I'll respond there, I just don't want to have five individual discussions going on, because, well, you'd rather have the next chapter, right?)


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